When I was growing up here, southern California was often blanketed in a thick layer of smog. I remember when my eyes and lungs were burning from pollution from cars and factories.

Over my lifetime, California has come a long way in cleaning its once infamously smoggy skies. This didn’t happen by accident, or by letting the fossil fuel industry have its way with our environment.

Cleaning our environment took smart policies and planning that prioritized the long-term gain.

But as anyone who has ever fought for respect, basic rights, or better wages – which is most of America by the way – will tell you, progress isn’t linear and victories aren’t permanent. Now more than ever, we have to work to protect the victories we’ve earned and to ensure that everyone gets to benefit in the country we are trying to build.

So this week, I will help represent California and the spirit of American innovation at the next round of United Nations climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

In normal political times, delegations like ours attend these conferences to meet international colleagues, learn about creative climate change solutions being implemented in other parts of the world that might work in our home state, and to be witness to history as world leaders work together to confront the gravest threat of our time.

This year, with the Trump administration ceding leadership on this global challenge to competitors like China, the significance of California’s presence at the UN has changed.

Leaders of big cities and small towns, rural and urban America have come together to reject President Trump’s retreat from global leadership, and affirm that whatever happens in Washington, We Are Still In the spirit of the Paris Agreement. Together, we are doing an unprecedented thing – telling the world that our president does not speak for us.

As I do this, I recognize that many Americans are angry and afraid.

People are angry about losing their jobs and their healthcare.

People are afraid of paying more in taxes when they can’t afford their homes.

President Trump is seizing Americans’ feelings to roll back environmental protections that have made our air cleaner and our world safer.

With the release of the National Climate Assessment, America’s best scientists are clearer than they’ve ever been that climate change is here and it’s worse than we thought. We simply cannot afford to ignore it.

Droughts, floods, and storms are devastating every region of America. It will take years to rebuild the communities across Northern California that were reduced to ash in a matter of days.

That’s why I’m passionate about using my office to fight for stronger protections for community health and the environment.

I authored legislation in California to address the super pollutants like black carbon and methane that are caused by wood smoke, diesel trucks and landfill emissions.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed my bill to offer incentives for Californians to switch from wood smoke heat to cleaner, more efficient sources.

We are creating jobs and putting money in people’s pockets.

As a major economy in its own right, California’s actions resonate far beyond our borders.

Look no further than California’s own fuel efficiency standards to see how our economic influence and our values can transform global markets and advance technology and innovation.

I don’t need to imagine what lax environmental protections are like, I’ve lived it. No one in their right mind wants to go back to the days when our mountains were obscured by gray haze.

But that is exactly where President Trump wants to go.

He believes that pulling the plug on our environmental protections “puts American jobs first.”

I think it puts American workers last if we stop leading on climate change.

America needs to seize this moment the way the earlier generations led the fight against fascism, won the race to the moon, and built the biggest economy the world had ever seen.

I’m proud to continue that tradition and keep southern California in the lead.

Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, is the author of the Super Pollutant Reduction Act of 2016.

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